When walking in Paris in winter, one is likely to encounter a café chalkboard proposing grog au rhum, the French version of a rum toddy. This ubiquitous drink is popular not only because of its alleged healing qualities – it is said to be a remedy for the common cold and associated ailments – but also because it is warming and tasty, a great pick-me-up in nippy weather. And the beauty is that it may be made at home in a matter of minutes.
Grog au rhum / Rum toddy, French style
The recipe is ultra simple. Boiling water is poured over dark rum mixed with raw cane sugar or honey, a teaspoon of lemon juice is added, et voilà. Variations abound. Some people add spice — a cinnamon stick, cinnamon powder, star anise, cloves, a vanilla bean or grated nutmeg. Sometimes another type of alcohol is substituted for rum, for example whisky, cognac (brandy) or, in Normandy, calvados (apple brandy).
One question with grog is the proportion of rum to water. When the drink was first invented — in 1740 by Vice Admiral Edward Vernon of the Royal Navy — sailors were ordered to dilute their daily ration of half a pint of rum with a quart of water, making the proportion 1:4. According to Vernon’s notes, the drink was to be consumed twice a day: half in the morning, from 10 to 12, and half in the afternoon, from 4 to 6. (Given that ‘grog’ is the root of the word ‘groggy’, one wonders how much work got done on those ships.)
Indeed over time the proportion declined, with the daily ration of rum to water reduced to 1:6 in order to combat drunkenness. But when sailors got access to the rum barrel, they were known to make what they called ‘a northwester’. Named after the points of the compass, with N for rum and W for water, the proportions were — yikes! –50-50.
As for the name ‘grog’, it too stems from Vice Admiral Vernon, who was known familiarly as ‘Old Grog’ because he wore a coat of grogham, a fabric made of wool and silk. Lemon or lime juice and sugar were added for flavor, and not to combat scurvy as is sometimes said since the evidence that Vitamin C could prevent the disease was still anecdotal at the time — a time when scurvy was decimating seafarers, with thousands of deaths every year.
Despite having searched far and wide, I was unable nail down how grog spread from Britain to France — although one can easily imagine sailors fraternizing if they happened to cross paths at a time when European ships were busy traversing the globe to bring back the bounty of colonized lands. Britain’s rum hailed from Jamaica, France’s from Guadeloupe and Martinique. The American Navy took up the grog tradition, but in due course substituted rye whisky for rum. A stop was put to this in 1862. Surprisingly, the Royal Navy ended the tradition of issuing rum to British sailors only in 1970.
Grog is a close relative of the hot toddy, which is generally made with whisky. Both are deemed useful in treating a cold. The French call this ‘un remède de grand-mère‘ (loose translation: ‘a homespun remedy’). As one French recipe puts it, while the proportions of the ingredients may be varied according to taste, ‘It is strongly advised to drink the grog while sitting on the edge of one’s bed, and to get in the bed immediately thereafter’.
Happy cooking.
